Of Rhymes and Romance
by Ballpoint Angel
Summary: After the fairytale that was Tutu, what of little Duck? Her friend the knight has a big plan for them both, but so does the great storyteller...contains Fakiru, RueMytho and Drosselmeyer's strangeness.
1. Act 1: A Prologue Written

_A/N: This plot happens all too often. But probably because we Fakiru fans know it will happen...at least, it is very probable that he did without our knowing. *shrug*_

Princess Tutu does not belong to me, but to its creators.

**Act 1: A Prologue Written**

_Once upon a time in a land far away,_

_A knight and his lady were cursed, for they_

_Could never confess, their love gone unheard_

_For one is a man and his sweet girl a bird_

_Whole worlds apart, yet sweet love's strings_

_Pull them together, poor sorrowful things!_

* * *

It was a balmy evening by a beautiful lake. The cool lake water tempted Fakir sorely, but he had other things on his mind.

It was almost the anniversary of the end.

It was a whole year after the Prince and the Raven Princess's story had concluded, a whole year of no more Princess Tutu. Ahiru was as her name dictated--merely Duck, the somewhat clumsy fowl in Fakir and Charon's care. Duck, who used to be the girl Ahiru. Who used to be Princess Tutu.

"Argh!"

Fakir's fingers clenched as he struggled for the correct word, the correct definition. He had to make this perfect, perfectly perfect. He was Fakir, after all--the noble, brave knight. Cool, efficient, charismatic, serious, secretly sensitive, pessimistic Fakir. Fakir, the knight. Fakir, the heir of Drosselmeyer. His hand moved in smooth German, ink that can turn to life, a testament to his grandfather's powers.

"This is hard," Fakir sighed as he paused in his writing, looking over his words carefully. His light brown fingers were calloused but gentle as he read the stripling story with little comfort. He leaned back on his wicker chair and looked out into the lake again. "Just a little more, Fakir..." He wanted this gift to be magnificent, life-changing even...

"Quaack." Fakir.

"...Ahiru?"

A yellow head looked carefully at the wooden dock and made a little quack that served as her laugh. "Quack, quack quack." Of course it's me. Who else? She did her little laugh-quack again. Even in quacks, she knew he would understand simply because of her nature.

Fakir couldn't help but chuckle. Ahiru was always comical, always stuck in some slapstick situation, usually involving one of her "dear friends"--Pike, Lilli, and Azura. With her sunflower bright wardrobe and super-long braid, Ahiru was never ordinary. Even as a duck, she looked very funny. But probably because of her nature as naive, goofy, considerate, big-hearted Duck.

"My Ahiru, you've grown."

It was true. Ducks don't age in the same pace as humans did, being a more short-lived species. The Ahiru that was once Fakir's junior by four years was suddenly in the same developmental stage as a young adult Fakir's age would be. Her tiny duckling body was now large, her breast wider and wings grown majestic. Her neck, though not as long as a swan's, was curved and graceful, and her round beak had tapered and flattened. The only thing that did not grow was...

"Quack!" the duck replied and looked upward on its head. Yes, but not this.

Upon her head was a long yellow feather that never lay straight. As a girl and as a princess it stood out as a bright orange cowlick that refused to be moved. It seemed smaller, compared to her younger days, but still refused to change.

Fakir's leaf green eyes twinkled as he saw that feather that never lay straight. "Right. Except for that silly little cowlick." He shut the book with his story papers inside, hidden carefully from Duck's sight. "Well, I'd better go help make supper. I'll be back with yours soon, so don't swim so far off, okay?" The young man stood up and stretched himself, yawning. His fingers ran through dark hair hung in a thick ponytail to his back.

"Quack." Yes, Fakir. The young duck winked and nodded her head. She paddled close to the dock raised her head for an affectionate pat, which the young man complied. Ahiru watched him jog back to their house and waited for her supper.

* * *

"Tut, tut."

Herr Drosselmeyer rubbed his hands together. His strange doublet suit and grand cape dressed him to flamboyant perfection, though this usual display of gaiety didn't cheer up the grand story-teller at all. Beside him toddled a small child no taller than his knees, with seafoam green hair and white-wood features. Her poufy garments reminded one of a harlequin, and a small child's drum was strapped to her front. Herr Drosselmeyer patted the puppet on the head, stroking his beard with his other free hand.

"No more interferance from me, but I must say this is uncharacteristic of my progeny!"

The little doll Uzura hopped about on one of those rare visits to the clockwork dimension Drosselmeyer resides in. "What's wrong with Fakir, zura?" she chirruped. "Something strange, zura?"

"Well, Fakir seems to be hard-pressed, little one!" Drosselmeyer clucked, watching one rotating gear with Fakir's face on it. Like a television screen, it displayed the young man and his guardian in a kitchen preparing food. "He cannot seem to write the story he longs to write the most!" Fakir was breaking up pieces of bread in a dish for Duck.

"The story he longs to write the most, zura?" Uzura tilted her head curiously. "What story is that, zura?"

Herr Drosselmeyer split his face into a wide smile and laced his fingers together. "Well, you could go ask him."

The little doll continued looking blankly at him. "Okay, zura. I'll ask Fakir, zura." With a bow and a bang of her little drum, Uzura walked away and disappeared from view.

Drosselmeyer was positively tickled. "Now this story I am interested in." He turns his pointed face and bulging kaleidoscope eyes toward an invisible audience. "What do you think will happen now?"

* * *

Hours have passed, yet he still cannot sleep.

Fakir was sure Charon would scold him in the morning for staying up so late, but the urge to pick pen on paper was too great. And now, he found himself in an intangible gray area of empty thought. He groaned and rested his face on the wooden desk of his single-candlelit room, thinking over the obstacle he now faced.

Writer's block.

"Great," he murmured. "Just great." Some masterful storyteller he was turning out to be. He folded the papers back into the book and decided to call it a night, blowing out the candle. He wished he could just forget about polishing it, but what a terrible story it would be! No convincing necessity, and quite haphazard. Even the ending was with a lame "and they lived out their lives as they pleased, the end." Fakir brought his elbows on the table, chin in his folded hands. "What to do..."

"Fakir has a big problem, zura?"

Fakir nodded, half-asleep. He was probably too irritated and sleepy to be surprised at Uzura's entrance now. "Yes, I do." He stretched and blew out the candle at his table. "Oh well, no use staying up. I might as well finish this tomorrow." He looked back and bade the little girl-doll goodnight as he fell back into his bed and fell asleep, murmuring things of "it's just a story..."

Uzura scampered over to Fakir's desk and looked at the story paper. Her little wooden eyes skimmed over the story of a young woman who became a duck, who was restored...The doll's mouth was in a perfect comical oval shape as she looked at each word with wonder. Thinking hard, Uzura had a bright idea.

Rummaging through Fakir's things, Uzura found the The Prince and The Raven--Drosselmeyer's piece that brought Tutu to existence. Carefully--and as quietly as possible--Uzura slipped in the story paper inside the book right after the ending page. She slipped it back inside the trunk and carefully fixed the desk to look as messy as the young writer left it. "I hope this fixes Fakir's problem, zura!" she chirped happily to herself. "This will help Duck, zura!"

Turning around in her gaily colored clothes Uzura rattattattatted away with her little drum and disappeared.


	2. Act 2: Plans

_A/N: This was...odd. To say the least. But I promise something will happen eventually after._

**Act 2: Plans**

_A penny for a lavender,  
Another for a biscuit,  
That's the way the money goes  
Pop goes the cufflink!_

_Looking for her little duck  
The princess chased the tea-set  
The prince and knight had kilts to wear  
Pop goes the cufflink!_

* * *

"Prince Sigfried. Doesn't suit you at all."  
"Oh, I agree." The frost-haired gentleman smiled a little and nodded. "Mytho is a much nicer name for me."

Fakir snorted as a maid nearby poured him more tea. "Who here calls you by that name, Your Royal Highness?" He mixed in more milk and cream and tapped his spoon on the rim for it to dry. "Your fellow aristocrats in your fluffy-cloud kindgom?"

"Rue, I suppose" Mytho took a sip of his drink. "And you, and everyone else who knew me as Mytho. Thank you kindly, Camille," he nodded at the maid standing nearby, who served bowed down stiffly and toddled away, frills and ribbons flouncing.

The prince's parlor was large and airy, with a large window blooming out into a curving bottom lip. Curving bookshelves molding to the round walls and rather cozy furniture made the place look more snug for some wise rich uncle or what. Prince Mytho and Fakir were seated a bit across each other between a small tea-table by the window.

The young writer put down his cup and locked his fingers together. "Shouldn't you be planning your wedding? Its been months to get ready." He waved his arm airily as Mytho took a bite of some biscuit from a chipped porcelain plate. "Or did your princess take that bother from you?" Their wedding was postponed after a few issues over the coronation of Sigfried as king, and the kingdom settling that the royal couple shall be crowned on their wedding.

Mytho clucked his tongue and looked at his friend with bemusement. "Unfortunately, we have another thing on our hands--the wardrobe. Rue insisted that you come and have a fitting, being the best man and all." He waved at the racks of clothes near them, numbering in dozens of suits. "Or did you think these things were doorstops?" Both men flinched as a few suits had noticeable amounts of lace and ribbons.

Fakir smirked and put the cup to his lips again, drawing in some tea before speaking again. "Speaking of your lovely lady, where is she? I haven't seen her in the castle."  
"She is at the royal gardens, picking out flowers for the wedding."  
"I see."  
"Ahiru's with her, if you were wondering about that too."

"Still not open to talking to her about it, huh?"  
The knight-writer pursed his lips. "There's nothing to talk to her about anything." A harder note sounded as he placed his cup back on the tray. "Nothing."

A soft sigh came from the prince's lips, sensing the adamant aura suddenly spiking in the air. "Fine, be that way, since we're busy. But you're not worming out of that talk after the wedding." He looked pointedly at the suits hanging on the clothing racks with his twinkling golden eyes. "So...shall we?"

* * *

In a wine-red gown adorned with lace, a beautiful lady with dark hair walked along cobblestone paths amongst the bushes. She held a wicker basket in her hand, and a silver coronet graced her head. Her deep burgundy eyes were curtained with lashes.

Once a figure of domination, of hatred and parasitic obsession, Princess Kraehe had melted away and left wonderful Rue to grow and blossom under Prince Mytho's warm love. Ever since childhood, the "daughter" of the prince's greatest nemesis the Monster Raven had loved the young man from the start.

Turning her lovely ivory face to the side, she spoke in a graceful voice. "What do you think of these, Ahiru?" She held out a purple bloom toward a small sunshiney figure close to her side.

The yellow duck beside her quacked, trying to express her human thoughts to the princess. _What does that mean, Rue-chan?_ She nudged her beak at the flower the princess held in her hand.

"Oh, the purple lilac means the 'first emotion of love'."

Ahiru quacked happily at the thought, and Rue understood as she blushed pink. She giggled and patted her friend on the head. "Oh you...don't tease me!" The princess straightened up and counted the flowers that would make her wedding bouquet.

"Dark pink and red roses for gratitude, trust and love, and blue violets for faithfulness and honesty...what about you, Ahiru?" Though some servants thought it strange for the royal couple to be so fond of a duck, they supplied her all the same with ribbons and things to wear to the festivities, as well as flowers for a garland.

Immediately her thoughts went to her human friend Lilie, with pale corn-yellow hair and a smile that spelled "doom". She was a fanatic of romantic tragedies, and spoke of death and destruction as sappily as possible. She had schooled Ahiru, years ago, of the different meanings of flowers--"to place upon your grave when you die of longing for Fakir-sempai!"--and of their significance.

Smiling to herself, Ahiru plucked a few flowers from the plants nearby and ran back to Rue, holding them proudly in her beak. Several blossoms of white daisy tips and gardenia blooms stuck up to form a small bouquet all her own. In her mind Ahiru ran over the meaning of her flowers: gardenias for 'secret love', daisies for 'faith'. The duck was already waddling to Rue with her neck outstretched, ready to hand over the flowers to her when...

* * *

"I am not wearing this man-skirt to a wedding, Mytho."  
"Kilt, Fakir. And yes, I think I have to agree with you."

And so Fakir threw the heavy velvet kilts away from them. Settling themselves, both young men chose suits of a dark navy blue and a collar that didn't itch too much. They were now agonizing themselves over things like cufflinks and shoes, and Mytho's pacifism seemed to be straining. "Come now," he said pompously, trying to make Fakir pick a set. "They're just cufflinks."

"Irritating pieces of metal--ngargh--that are 'man-earrings' that you wear on your wrists." Fakir snarled as he tried to fix his tie. He groaned and yanked his own tie off, lying flat on his back on the floor, amongst many suit bags and shoe boxes. "I swear, I dread getting married now that I'm this pissed...and this isn't even my own shindig."

Mytho laughed. "No one will marry you at this rate, you're so unpleasant at some of the most mundane things." His eyes widened as a sudden gust of wind picked up and the tea-set by the window rattle ominously..."Oh no."

* * *

Ahiru sensed the falling teapot at flew off somewhere out of animal instinct. Before Rue could call her back, her own feathery wings found their way to a bramble bush nearby where she quivered until the princess could find her. She would have waited quietly until something piqued her interest.

A picture.

_What would a picture be doing under a bramble bush?_ Ahiru couldn't think of why, and I'm very certain I can't think of why myself. She looked at it carefully and felt her heart suddenly slow in tempo, unexplainably, she knew that subject. It seemed to Ahiru's eyes to be a clue to something grand.

A woman holding a baby.

The woman was lovely, with what seemed to be long terracotta hair and pretty blue eyes. The baby in her arms was indistinct, but fast asleep underneath the soft cloth it was wrapped in. The painter of the picture seemed to have known them very well, for the picture was very homey. The features were clear despite the piece of canvas barely bigger than Ahiru's webbed foot.

"Ahiruu? Ahiru?"

_Not now_, Ahiru thought. _Rue-chan and the others are waiting for me!_ Her heart tugged at the picture so...she couldn't let go! Compromising, she hid the picture under her foot as the princess found her. The yellow duck hobbled beside her, pretending to have a little limp, if only to preserve that clue until she could show it to Fakir...

**TBC...**


	3. Act 3: The Fantasmagorium

_A/N: School exams. O_o Hmmm...what do you think will happen next? I would like to know myself. :)_

_Tutu's not mine. Too bad._

**Act 3: The Fantasmagorium**

_How doth the little marionet  
Improve this shining tale,  
And pour ink-words to be let  
'Pon reality's golden scale!_

* * *

Ahiru showed the ragged little painting to Fakir later in the evening, garnering near-to-nil effect. He was tired, and he had enough of what last-minute color napkins he had to have his opinion asked of from Mytho ("you're still my best friend..."); a young man deprived of too much sleep becomes a disagreeable, moody and acidic beast--comparable to a very erratic woman on PMS. So a disgruntled snap was enough for Ahiru.

Ahiru kept on looking at that faded little raggedy piece, with that strange picture of woman and child. As far as her memory went, she did not recognize the woman and child by name, yet her soul felt a twinge of kinship when she looked at the blurred faces. She would quack to the picture, though it seemed silly. Who are you? she asked. Who are you?

_Never mind now_, she thought. _Perhaps tomorrow...yes, tomorrow._ She pushed the small scrap under her bedding. Snuggling on the cushion, she tucked her head under her wing and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

The next morning Fakir and Ahiru joined the royal couple for breakfast...well, one half of it, anywho. Tucking into a bowl of fresh cream and chunks of bread, Ahiru ate her meal fairly quickly. In between pecks of her bill, she looked at Mytho and tilted her head to one side, asking a question. _Oh, where is Rue-chan?_

"Rue's already out, I'm afraid." Mytho spread some strawberry jam on his bun. "Dressing up for the wedding."

"QUACK?!" _Dressing?!_ The duck's face wet with cream only enhanced her shocked expression.

Fakir was incredulous as well. "Your wedding's today?! Why didn't you tell us, you idiot! I thought we were just tying up a few ends, weeks before the day!"

"Well, yes." The prince said, his voice oddly cheery. "It was only a few loose ends. That's why we were able to do it the day before the actual wedding." The former knight slapped his hand on his forehead. Despite regaining his heart, Mytho's common sense needs a few tweaks. "Rue knows it, we arranged for it last night."

Ahiru flapped her wings, drawing attention. "Quack quack!" _Well, where is she now?!_

"She's probably at one of the parlor rooms getting ready. Bad luck for me to see the bride too soon, you know."

Leaving her bowl, Ahiru rubbed her bill on the tablecloth dry and hurriedly flew off--as the corridors of the palace were very large and wide--to the parlor room. Fakir had to grab the quite clueless groom and steer him toward his room.

"You idiot, the groom should be at the venue first before the bride! To meet up with the entourage and stuff!" Already they were at a run--if Fakir remembered, Rue mentioned a morning wedding.

"...Really?" Mytho grinned...nervously, trailing behind his buddy. Utterly hopeless!  
"Yeah."

"...Oh."

* * *

Rue looked at the full-length mirror and cast a careful inspection at her wedding gown. It was very pretty, a ballgown in creamy white and a full skirt that scalloped at the edges. Her frothy angel's veil made soft waves around her her. The effect was pretty, but something seemed a little off. She turned to a maid near her, who was assisting in putting together the whole affair. "What do you think of this, Angeline?"

"I think you look lovely, ma'm!" The petite girl chirped as she perched on a stool to fix the veil. Rue's thick dark hair was held together in a bun, and her bangs curled on her smooth forehead.

BANG! Angeline screamed and wobbled violently on her stool.

"Qua...qua...qua...!" There inside the room burst in the golden-yellow duck. Her breath came in short puffs, and her feathered breast heaved. The princess was surprised as well. "Ahiru!"

The duck spoke in fast quacks, and Princess Rue laughed. "Ah, I see, so Mytho didn't tell you?" A few more quacks, then a "Hmm. Well, he ought to get to his senses soon, this is a big day!" Ahiru waddled closer to the princess and tried to smooth her feathers down from her flight.

Angeline look puzzled at this exchange and shrugged. Some people really were a little eccentric, and what with the couple's chronic fear of ravens, she didn't see how talking to a duck would be too far off...especially an intelligent duck.

Ahiru was given a nice clean blue ribbon to wear around her neck, and the yellow duck curved her body so in such a manner that she could see the delightful trifle in the mirror. She quacked, pleased as Rue found her lovely bouquet nestled in white tissue paper.

Only hours to go.

* * *

The light cane trellis encircling the garden was entwined with all sorts of flowers, flowers that we people know and flowers that seemed to grow only in Prince Sigfried's ethereal kingdom. Along with creeping ivy and dainty wisteria came soft white blossoms of the rose. Between foxglove grew the exotic lilies-of-the-valley, cheerful hibiscus mixed with the docile blue and pink hydrangea.

The marriage was very much like a church marriage to you and me, and indeed there seemed to be a pastor (a bearded joyful man in white), and an altar. Many benches formed two columns flanking the cleared garden path that was to be the aisle, smooth and swept clean. Between the crisscross of the trellis sprigs swaths of air-light cloth were swept in graceful arches around the venue...indeed, the whole scene was almost unreal.

Now Prince Mytho did return to sense, and was now feeling his internal organs do the twist as he was standing in front of the altar. Though his dark blue formal suit and immaculate appearance was prepared for, the whole magnitude of what he was doing made him feel unprepared somewhat, if only nervous.

Beside him stood Fakir, in a matching suit and subdued ponytail, cool as the ice sculptures drowning in punch bowls planned at the reception. Of course he wasn't nervous, Mytho thought. It wasn't his wedding. It was mine.

Fakir abruptly pinched his friend on the cuff. "Ow! What was that for?" Mytho yelped, rubbing his wrist vigorously and thinking, _Great, a blue-black bruise to match my suit_.  
"To stop your teeth from chattering. I'm the best man, I can't let you go all 'cold-feet' on me." The writer said pointedly. "Or on Rue. This is your big moment, so you won't screw up--besides, I am not dressing up like this for nothing."

But he couldn't get cold feet--that was the last thing on his mind. He knew that today would be one of those "near perfect days"--not predictable but joyful. Mytho knew it was right when the hushings of the guests grew suddenly quiet and a nearby organ played.

The whole wedding was a very emotional thing, and the guests were awestruck at the happiness and serenity that radiated from the couple as they said their vows. Ahiru was an excellent brides-duck, and she was quacking in joy with the other . Rue and Mytho was happy, Fakir was happy, and that made her happy too.

The painting can wait, until tomorrow.

* * *

"Who are you?"

Its lips were painted silver and its eyes flashed in an indescribable color, neither black nor white. Its attire was in the shaped of a robe, though not of any physical thing at all--it merely seemed to be a glowing fuzz of aura. Its face was expressionless (yet, somehow seemed to frown anyway) and of a strange indistinct shape. The body was willowy and wavy.

This seemed to be a facade. Drosselmeyer knew of this ilk--of storytellers that spun tales, yes there were thousands, millions. Most were a frighteningly inferior aspect--their forms were either animals or humans with "perfect" characteristics, eyes of fantastic colors and powers well beyond what reality could give. Their stories were terrible. Once, and only once in a while there were true writers, with forms that were enduring and powerful (but not injustly so), forms that truly had soul.

Drosselmeyer seemed very piqued at this strange new creature, as he couldn't tell if this was one of the inferior ones or not. He pointed a bulging eye at it. "I don't know how you got here, but you don't seem like a true storyteller. Out now, shoo." He flapped his arms about and swept his back away from the thing, feeling very smug. It was best to keep riffraff out, allowed the Andersens and Carrolls and Dahls to sweep in.

The creature faded in and out, like a picture of some fuzzy aerial. Two immaterial hands emerged from its cloud of aura and made a circle in space, letting a picture-gear materialize in front of it. The eccentric gentleman peered through the gear and seemed pleased.

"Oho, so you are writing about my failure of a story, eh?"

The creature couldn't answer back, for it had already vanished. Drosselmeyer noticed this and shrugged it off. Some storytellers were like that. He observed as the little duck he recognized vanished.

**TBC**


	4. Act 4: Quills and Questions

_A/N: I think Fakir is a mulatto. Maybe it's just me, but I find the words "gypsy gentleman" very suitable for him. What do you think? :) Or maybe it's because "Wuthering Heights" is required reading for school, and I find Heathcliff intriguing._

_Please forgive me for the late submission. I've been held back by writer's block. And my mum banning the Internet on weekdays. : Any ideas for the story will be welcome. I hope you enjoy...this is short, but there is a major things a-going on._

_**I own nothing but the story.**_

**Act 4: Quills and Questions**

_My others, they killed me,  
My anothers, they burned me,  
My maidservant,  
Gathered my hands,  
Tied them in a silken scarf,  
Laid them beneath the chrysanthemum tree,  
Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful Creator am I._

* * *

One of Fakir's brown curved ears were turning slowly red, sticking to the ridged wooden desk.

Now the sky of the celestic kingdom was slowly becoming a soft scarlet and orange, and the following morning Fakir and Ahiru would depart from the castle. The newly-weds had embarked on their honeymoon, after wishing them farewell. They departed in a beautiful pearly carriage drawn by many winged creatures--doves and ponies and butterflies--spreading fairy-dust in their wake.

With one day left to stay in Prince Siegfried's realm, Fakir wasted no time in trying to gain inspiration for his greatest project. He walked among the gardens. He listened to fine music. He looked at wonderful paintings. Yet the rather forlorn-looking paper looked...indecent for being in its state of nakedness.

The candle had long blown out, and Ahiru's warm feathered breast heaved in sleep from the wicker basket at his balcony. Time took a toll on the author's body, and his tired eyes drifted out of focus. Moss-green liquid cool disappeared under sleepy lids, and finally Fakir fell asleep at the desk.

* * *

"Why, the flowers looked like chrysanthemums."

The young man found himself standing before a tree. He was quite wary of magical trees nowadays, and this was no different. The absence of feeling in his limbs meant this was all just a dream. Around him was fog, like what Kinkan Town used to be in. It was only him and the ugly tree--bulging, stout in black trunk with shrunken dry leaves yet juiciest blooms of such fantastic colors frosted the tree.

The toothy blossoms opened and closed with the deathly silence. The thinning voices whispered in unison from the petals.

"Look yonder at poppies that skirt the fields of dead, with their bloody skirts and sombre bosoms. Take heed of black roses with their voluptuous lips that whisper in the wind. They are not death-flowers, but I," and it wailed, "am the flower of Death, the Truth."

"Once upon a time, there was a young man with a dream. He dreamed that he could make a world all his own. And so he did--with his mind, with his hands. He had the great gift of the storyteller, the gift of the sense of the reality. He wanted his creations to come to our reality, and so he came to me."

"He had heard of me from legends and myths, and had come to seek the essence of me--the essence of Truth. So he plucked my blossoms and made it into ink, and wrote many a masterpiece--masterpieces that sprang into being, into Truth! But the young master's hands were sliced off by the beaten--those who saw the Truth and were afraid. They thought they could lock his talent up--one of Truth's greatest wielders! Alas he made the truth his own truth, not the Truth, and he began spinning what you call lies, illusions."

The tree made a horrible creak and bent over Fakir. "Tell me child, do you fear the Truth?"

Fakir thought for a moment before replying. We cannot be sure of what he said, but from his low tone it was a serious question.

The great tree stopped its trembling for a split second, then began to crumble into aged dust, glowing as cinders. All of the chrysanthemums fell in a shower all around him. The young writer caught one in the palm of his hand--gold, and partly closed. He closed his eyes and brought the flower to his chest. Oh how he wished for the power the Truth could bring! He would finally conclude the story of the duck, the girl, the princess, the angel...His heart raced in anticipation! It raced for that one desire to know...

What if.

The lone knight stood in the fog, cutting a starkly dramatic figure. His lean brown body is stiff and straight, legs solidly rooted; the sinews of his neck arched in an inward curve, his finely carved face closed to everything but his thoughts. The chrysanthemum tree had disappeared.

* * *

Just beyond Fakir's still comatose fingers were strings of ink, spidering into tiny connections on its own. It seemed very much like the young man's handwriting, only more...otherworldly, it seems. It adorned the paper like curls of embroidery on cloth, crawling about on its own accord.

The craft wooden face watched the dark liquid vines twitch on the parchment .

And the Truth seeped its sepia creepers into the tale, pulling into the machine's gears. Twisting what once was, into what the heart longed for the most.

* * *

A year. It's been a whole year.

Ahiru could not stay asleep for long, not with the many thoughts that suddenly came with the realization of this important milestone. It was a moment of happiness, of inner peace. Then why did she keep awake that night?

Perhaps it was because of a lingering regret, a tiny bit of longing to know "what if"...?

She knew--guiltily--that she did enjoy being a girl. She loved the sensation of waking up in the morning in a nice warm bed, the feel of sunshine and rain through her skin. And most of all she missed dancing--the sensation of her legs arching in time, her arms sweeping about and her heart feeling as if it could do the same.

Ahiru longed for that sensation.

She remembered, too, her decision to give up her humanity, and she was happy and willing to do it. She remembered how she and Fakir made their pledge in the dark, their bodies dancing together into the night...for the very last time.

That was all history now. But what if...?

A sudden searing sensation coursed through Ahiru's every nerve. Like electricity, like fire, it crackled under her feathers. Dizzy, in pain, she flew out of the balcony she slept in into the cold lake a few meters away. No--she couldn't bear the pain anymore!

Her pain distracted her flight and made her barrel a little out of control, but she steadied herself enough to change her trajectory downward, downward...into the confort she thought she could find in the tides. A thousand icy needles pricked at every avian muscle in her body, yet the yellow duck felt no relief. Her skin was stretching, back arched as if something would burst out of her insides. She felt her body fall into a silent scream. Ahiru's body dropped as a stone.

_Everything's burning!_

A momentary swell of the lake's unusual tide brought the little body onto its pebbly shore.

Instead of lanky wings were supple limbs, with fingers blooming at each hand.  
Instead of soft damp feathers, smooth skin and orange-bright hair.  
The feet were no longer webbed, the tail no longer there.  
And replacing a rounded beak was a pair of tiny lips, that thought would never say another word.

And Ahiru scrambled to look at her reflection and was amazed to see a heart-shaped face look back at her. And without so much as a thought, pearly moon-tears dribbled onto the young woman's new cheeks.

* * *

Blissfully unaware, the young man frowned minutely before mumbling unintelligible notions in his sleep.

**TBC**


	5. Act 5: Voice of the Marion

_**A/N: May 2010 be fruitful for all of us~**_

_**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but the plot.**_

_'Tis the voice of the Marion: I heard her recite  
"I have granted your wish, in the dark of the night."(-zura)  
As a duck with her quacking, so she with her moves  
Trims letters and paper with fingers in grooves.  
When the pages are dry, she'll be free as a carp,  
And will talk in dilly-dallying chimes of the harp;  
But, when gears start to turn and strings softly hum,  
Her lips snap shut as her face becomes mum._

**Act 5: Voice of the Marion**

"Mmmh..."

A pair of blue eyes blinked into the morning sun, curtained by a thick fringe of lashes. Ahiru arched her chest upward in a cat-like stretch, muscles trying to shake the dawn's chill. Her neck stretched, she felt a tiny tinge of disappointment in her heart.

_A dream...?_

No...she musn't think that. It was selfish of her to long for her humanity, when everyone else was so happy as they truly are! Yet Ahiru felt herself frown, ashamed at her feelings that she had come to struggle with recently. She prepared to rise from her bedding.

And saw a full-length mirror at the side of the bed.

Her jaw hung slack when she realized that she possessed a jaw. And instead of a strangled quack from her throat was the weak, broken voice of a girl. the first words she had spoken in a year escaped from her newly-formed lips.

"...No way."

Her hair was unruly and wavy, and was longer than the braid she had donned long ago. The orange color had deepened a little with age, and her body was no longer as boyish, her hips starting to curve and her bosom beginning to bloom. Her legs were long and sturdy, and her arms were supple.

Many thoughts came buzzing into her head. _Who brought me here? Why am I a girl again? Was there another force at work? Drosselmeyer's return? Does Fakir know anything...? Any spell that had not been broken? Any task that had not been finished?_ Her mind unearthed no answers, only blankness.

Ahiru's first thought was to consult Fakir, and so she looked around the sky-blue bedroom she recognized as one of the palace's guest rooms. She saw a dressing gown of eggshell-white wool, and took it from the bedpost it was hanging on. Hurriedly she slipped it on and stood up.

Her human legs were new, and so she wobbled violently and fell flat on the carpet. Despite the pain, Ahiru had to laugh a little on the inside..._I guess I'm still me_...

She stood up again, stretching up to her full height and carefully tried to re-learn how to walk. Heel, toe, heel, toe, each half-a-step was done carefully. The young woman beamed, so exhilarated was she that she couldn't care less how wobbly she might have looked. Shakily, her hand reached for the brass doorknob.

* * *

Fakir's eyes split open, his cheek pasted on the desk.

He slowly raised himself and hissed when his neck argued with each bend. It was stinging chewed-up muscle where a neck should have been. The writer cursed and tried to stretch himself a little. "I should really quit those long nights..."

A soft tap on the door interrupted his thoughts, and Fakir reached out to open it. There stood one of the head maids, a plump little lady of around fifty with wiry-yellow hair and eyes of soft syrupy-brown. "Master Fakir," she began in a polite and creaky tone, "I'm sorry to disturb, but one of the gardeners found a little girl half-drowned by the lake! We've put her in one of the guest rooms, but we've no idea who it was. Would you mind checking on her? Perhaps you know the girl."

At a lake? "I'll go check it out. Thank you."

The door closed and Fakir went inside the bathroom. He got some cold water from a basin and poured it all over his face, wishing perhaps that the water would erase the eyebags and stress lines that came with late night writing. _Funny thing is_, the young man thought to himself, _I couldn't remember what I was writing last night..._

But he remembered the creak of wood.  
And the sound of tapping.  
And perhaps...if he thought hard enough...a song?

He looked at the face staring at him from the mirror's silver sea. It was a little perplexed, a little tired, a little careworn. "Never mind that now," he said aloud. "We have someone to check on."

* * *

"The dining room's downstairs..."

Ahiru walked slowly, gripping onto the rail of the marble staircase. Perhaps she could find Fakir, eating. Perhaps he would choke on his food at her new change, or snort out some orange juice, or...

Goodness. Ahiru giggled to herself. She was still the same old impish self! She clung onto the banisters and prepared to lower the next flight of stairs when she heard a gasp and a voice calling her name.

It was deeper than when she remembered when her ears were more receptive to sound, and a little huskier. But the undertone of something strengthening was in his voice, and Ahiru was glad to hear it again. "Fakir!"

Indeed Fakir was standing at the bottom of the staircase, with his threadbare clothes and wide open mouth. From her newfound height, Ahiru could see him clearly--his tall frame and his brown skin warmed by sun, his hair like the myrtle in summer and his eyes like the pondweed of her lake. The young woman tried to hasten her steps. One...two...three...four...

"Fakir!"

With a twinkling tripping step, Ahiru spread her arms and fell into a loving--a feeling she had not experienced in a long time.

* * *

If Uzura could smile, her face would have cracked.

But she was pleased indeed, and she showed it in Drosselmeyer's lair with her drum and her constant chirruping of "zura". The aged specter couldn't be more irritated. In a righteous rage, he turned toward the airy creature that was meant to be the author.

"What are you doing to my beautiful story?! This is no fun." And he spat at its feet.  
The creature that was blurry and solid did not falter, only tilted its silvery head to the side.  
"Fun? Happy endings are no fun! Add something evil and ominous!"  
The author-thing blinked, and waved its arms. It then pointed at Drosselmeyer.

The story-teller's body dissolved, its outline redrawing itself as one rubs out a pencil mark and applying a new one. This new body was fresh and young, a lanky crane-like body that was handsome in bearing. The great pomegranate eyes were spiral but not as bulging, his curled locks shorter and of a dark olive.

The body that was meant to be Drosselmeyer cackled as he admired himself. "OHO! Why didn't I think of that? What culd be more evil and ominous in the story than me? Toodles, story-writer~!"

With a faint pop, the body that was Drosselmeyer disappeared into the gears.

Uzura watched this strange occurence and made no sense of it. The little wooden puppet looked at the misty thing watching the story from its new nest. "What is the purpose of your writing-zura?"

The creature merely put a ghosty hand to its mouth, and immediately there was silence.

**TBC...!**


	6. Act 6: The Hunting of the Part

_A/N: I've been researching on folk and fairy tales of Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. And Lewis Carrol's nonsensical poems :D I'm afraid I can imitate neither with much skill._

_I own nothing but the plot. :D_

Of wills and tempers that scarily flare,  
Beneath the fizzling of corks and hope,  
T'was argentine, c'est magnifique clair,  
Yet needed more cleaning than soap.

**Act 6: The Hunting of the Part**

"Ah, my dear Widow Fox!"

The anthropomorphic creature snarled darkly under her hood at the visitor. It was night and the forests were no place for any humans...but then again her visitor seemed barely human. It was strange that she was picking up firewood again...for some reason her "self" seemed insubstantial in a long time...but a fox was never meant to dwell on such things too long.

"Every tale has a beginning and an end: prologue and epilogue. You have not found an ending yet, my dear. Same with the knight and ducky, in fact..."

What is this fool blathering on about? Disgusted, Widow Fox bared her teeth at Drosselmeyer and stalked off to another pile of branches for her fire. When she flicked her bushy scarlet tail he was gone once again. But that was to be expected, right? She sighed and continued, tying her bundle of firewood together and returning to lonely home.

An interesting spot in the forest trail made her stop--it seemed like a niche carved in the woods, covered in downy silver and green moss. There she saw a cunning gentleman with green trousers and a pointed muzzle with a glistening red jewel brooch pinned on his vest. He seemed to be waiting for her and pleasantly smiled, showing wonderfully pointed teeth. Widow Fox did not show it in her furry face, but the twitch of her whiskers showed that she found the brooch to be unpleasant. She remembered it clearly--her trinket Love.

She gave her trinket Love away the day her husband died. She had given it to the strange wooden peddler on the street years ago, and had forgotten about it all.

And the hurtful gem somehow returned, pinned on this promising young Reynard who seemed to find her pleasant. She would not let her heart be swayed...but she had been so lonely...no, love had hurt her so...yes, but it gave also great joy...

"...A moment please." Handing over her bundle of firewood, the vixen gave directions to the fox to her home where she would rejoin him for some tea. She had an errand to do...concerning the strange wooden peddler.

And with a smile that had not smiled for more than a year, Widow Fox curtsied and left for town.

* * *

The beautiful steam train in the clouds whistled like a warbler on the first day of spring.

All the guests from Prince Sigfried's and Princess Rue's wedding were returning to their own domains on that train: there were rulers who lived in the velvet dark amongst the stars, and princesses whose carriages were made of flames and rock.

Fakir was taking one last look from the window that would carry him back to Kinkan Town. His traveling case was under the purple silken seats, his dark coat clashing with the immaculately sunny interior of the compartment--white walls, gold curlicues, light blue curtains framing the windows, and all that prettiness.

Ahiru was sticking her head out the window, waving at the servants that took care for them. Her hair was braided in a long tail as it always was before, with a white ribbon at the end. Her dress was a water blue, and very plain with a little starched lace at the hem and collar. Her freckled face was sunny as she called out from the train.

"Thank you! Goodbye! Goodbye!"

The train began to move upon its golden rails, picking up speed slowly but surely. Ahiru flopped back on her seat and watched the cloud-land fly by. "It was nice there, but it feels good to be going back home! I just wish we could have said goodbye to Rue and Mytho!"

"I left a letter for them," Fakir sighed. "And we'll be having problems when we get back. How are you going to live? Surely not in that pond!" True, a body of water was not suitable for a human girl to live in, no matter how ducky her nature.

"Why, with you, Fakir!" And Ahiru laughed when Fakir's face grew deep red, unaware of what he thought she had implied. She went back to the snacks they had in the compartment and decided to start without him, frosting flying with every bite.

_What an idiot..._Fakir shook the idea out of his head. _I guess I shouldn't have taken her so seriously...._

With a quite smile, Fakir accepted Ahiru's offering of a muffin with relatively more humor.

* * *

Along the old stone bridge Widow Fox looked for a familiar white face and hair the color of watered down peas. No one of that description ever did appear, and in her place stood an old doll-seller.

The doll-seller was of a spindly stock, with cloudy white hair and wiry hands that could have stitched with the most delicate needle or painted a face with the most delicate brush. Her stall was full of dolls--blonde ones, brunette ones, ones made of wax and were expensive and ones made of simple rags and were affordable. Some had eyes made of clean black buttons and some made of beads, but all looked lovely and somehow magical (as how every doll looks like, to a little girl that might have been a doll-mother).

The vixen wrapped her hood more securely (for humans didn't take kindly to ladies with pointed snouts) and asked, "Do you know the jewel-peddler, kind lady? She used to be here but recently, for I would like to ask something of her."

The spindly looking lady gave a kind crinkling smile. "I'm afraid not, dear. No one knows quite how, but she left a long time ago."

"Thank you, then."

From the corner of a pretty dark eye Widow Fox saw a little doll with the most interesting features. A little wooden face, with painted blue eyes and wee fingers that grasped at a toy drum that complimented a harlequinesque costume. That doll...so familiar looking.

But then again, a fox was never meant to dwell on such things too long.

* * *

"The story...!"

He had bound it himself, in sheepskin and leather. He had made it a delightful little thing, something he had worked so hard to craft and perfect! It had beautiful lettering, and the words were carefully picked out...

And it was gone.

Fakir was in his room now, supposedly unpacking from his long journey. His belongings seemed to be more in disarray now he had returned--his suitcase was flung open on the bed, everything pulled out and open, all to search for his masterpiece of a book that he had meant to give to Ahiru...a book that could change her life.

Frustrated, Fakir looked at the pockets inside the case one last time, shoving his hand roughly in every possible cranny. He neaerly jumped out of his stoic skin when a faint, chirpy voice suddenly spoke.

"You won't find it there, zura."

Fakir was never one who easily left frustration. He rounded on the puppet and nearly roared at her. "Where did Drosselmeyer hide it, Uzura? Tell me!" His fists were balled up. "If he changes it, we'll all be trapped in the workings of someone's world again! Help me!"

"Drosselmeyer doesn't know. He's here--to look for it, zura." Uzura craned around and surveyed at the chaos of the room as Fakir slumped down to the floor, pissed. At least the creepy old demon didn't have his spidery hands on it.

"But it's my story."  
"Well, yes and no, zura. It's Ahiru's story, and Drosselmeyer's story, and everyone else's too, zura!"

As easily as she had appeared, she vanished.

Fakir groaned, lying prone on the hard floorboards and staring at the ceiling, trying to collect himself.  
_Something else was at the heart of this._  
One unbroken thought ran around his befuddled mind.  
_Who was really writing it?_


	7. Act 7: Kein Verlust der Liebe

**_A/N: This time I've been delving into opera. What are your opinions on Tchaikovsky's Firebird?_**  
**_(Forgive my crudeness in freeform poetry.)_**

_Embers flick in the night whisp'ring vespers to the sky while icicles drip from my heart's cavernous shell._  
_The burns on my lips and the scars on my chest are nothing but ornaments on Memory's altar._  
_Rest quietly beneath the final embrace, for there is no loss of love._

**Act 7: Kein Verlust der Liebe**

The lithe figure stretched in the darkness of the room whose gears did not spin. "You have chosen me to be part of this story again, right? What is holding you back from letting me out?" He felt like he was talking to air (it did seem so), and being such an impulsive person he did not respond kindly to it.

_I am here to reveal the Truth. A Truth you have been long deprived of._

The man closed his eyes. And his mortality came rushing back to him as he fell into the real world.

**Koschey Drosselmeyer.**

**The swirling memories haunted him. He was a youth...yes, a budding writer in the town of artisans. He was colleagues with sculptors and poets and painters, and they loved the prodigious skill he wielded with his hands.**

**"Koschey!" One painter...an excitable, naive young man extolled his skill. Koschey--The Immortal!**

The young Drosselmeyer walked along the paths, distracted by mundane things. Peddlers on the street. Children running and laughing. Adults having conversation and carrying grocery bags. Somewhere near, a street performer twined herself in strange shapes, to applause and coins.

**He was happy in his work...happy until the gypsy caravan came in the winter, the symbol of carefree happiness in the bleak cold. Shadows of beautifully dark eyes and curls of gypsy hair clung to his soul. Since then his heart had burned away at itself--burned with love at such a woman. His pen lay quietly among the papers of long-forgotten stories, not quite finished in the light of this new obsession. They had been happy, for a while.**

**And she left him, when spring came, with the caravan. With bitter tears she had told him that he was cruel...not the man she had fallen in love with. Cruel! Said the siren that had inflamed his heart so.**

**"Koschey...!" And her sobs with every blow he struck only fueled his rage. Koschey. Sorcerer.**

Drosselmeyer smirked, clapping at the performer, but not without dropping a rock into the hat of coins on the ground. Chuckling, he went towards the place where the Old Oak Tree was.

**With a new fire bleeding in his veins, Drosselmeyer began to write. Pain became inseperable from joy, tragedy the partner of happiness...until the darkness in his heart engulfed him so that joy and happiness became insignificant. For many more years he continued writing stories unabated, and he relished the fact that these powerful emotions could be so potent.**

**Imagine the venomous jolt in his heart when he saw a traveling ballet troupe--so reminiscent of the family that gave him his lover, his greatest downfall--arrived at his town.**

**And when they held a show, he went to watch and saw the inferno in his heart burn hotter. The ballet was about a prince who sought a magical prize, a fowl of the sun. The dancer was draped in orange and red, her beauty smiting...and she had eyes for only one.**

**"Koschey!" He longed for that word to escape those ruby lips. Koschey. Bone**

The Oak Tree was gone now...save for the little stone that marked its place. "I suppose a little acknowledgement is okay." And he bowed pompously at the rock before moving on, laughing darkly. His hands were buried there, too.

**The painter that was below him...had fallen in love with the dancer too. And the writer shrank away even more when the humble painter found a muse in the lady with the sunset-hued hair. He refused to acknowledge him--not on their romance, not on their wedding, not on the birth of their child.**

**And when he saw that happiness...the one he couldn't attain...one thought streamed through his mind as he wrote about the prince who threw away his heart...**

Drosselmeyer stopped by the bridge and looked at his reflection in the water. His face was thin and pale as bone. His eyes were sinister but subdued, horrified at the thoughts that overwhelmed him upon entry into the real world. Humanity was vulnerable...but real. This was his chance...to set everything right!

**One virtue throbbed hard through his veins as he felt the vestiges of life slip away from his already gone fingers...and one goal rang clear when he found that hated, living reminder of their love...and trapped her within his lies...**

**Revenge.**

"Koschey is no more. I...am only Drosselmeyer."

* * *

Ahiru looked into the beautiful summery sky. It still felt incredible to be human, free from the constraints of an animal's form. She loved walking on the cobblestone streets that traced the face of the town she had grown to love. Even now she hummed brightly as she came from the bakery with a basket full of food.

Uzura took the opportunity to pop out of the street corner and join Ahiru. They talked about all sorts of things as they walked...how it felt to be human again and what would they be eating for lunch and why sunflowers turn their heads. The young woman noticed that they were going towards an alley, and became apprehensive. As always, Uzura had the time to say something about it.

"You'll find out the Truth-zura!"

And with a final "-zura", Uzura pointed at the door with the gear painted on it and disappeared.

So much for normalcy. Should I throw all caution? Or believe?

Ahiru opened the door.

Something that looked like a fairy entirely made of snowy light was in the place where Drosselmeyer once was. It merely looked at the gears that had ceased to turn with misty eyes, eyes that slid toward Ahiru. Not really changing in demeanor, its soft voice began to speak.

_You and the young writer were the knight and the duck._

The girl felt a pang in her heart at the words, but she quietly acquiesced. "We were."

_The knight and the duck that were brought into the story. A story that twisted and degenerated into a lie. Before that story was the Truth. Your Truth and his._

"The truth...of who I am?"

_The frost-fairy nodded. Your Truth. Fakir's. And Drosselmeyer's as well._

"Drosselmeyer?"

_The Truth is impartial. He needs to find Truth himself, because that's the only one. Not you. You have **him**. And he has **you**._

And the door shut and disappeared.

* * *

Ahiru contemplated all these as she walked back to the blacksmith shop, her insides quivering. Every step felt lighter, yet more unsteady.

_I was brought into the story...not made. Outside of it all, I was born._

_Born_. That word brought tingles up her spine. _From whom? Did I have a mother that still mourned for her lost child? A father that searched for his angel? Siblings? A name meaning more than "duck"?_

The painting! It was at home, in the guest bedroom Charon had provided for her. It must be a clue to my past...to the truth! She broke into a little run, almost upsetting the breadbasket she was carrying. And the person in front of her. The bump was only a brush, but the gaze of that bony young man somehow brought fear into Ahiru's heart. The pomegranate eyes drilled through her...eyes as cruel and glassy as she last saw them. Ahiru whispered under her breath.

"Drosselmeyer..."

And he smiled back, wide and mischievous.

"Hello, Ahiru-chan!"

* * *

**_Once upon a time, a man died. His work was creating stories to grieve other people._**  
**_In defiance of his death he wrote a story of true pain and sorrows. However, now there was not a drop of hope to soften the eternal elegy. Not a trickle of love to dull the endless sadness._**  
**_The truth seeped into the story, and the power of hope came with it. And then, the story had ended its middle, but not the beginning or end._**  
**_At the same time, 'Hmm?' came the mutter from somewhere by the man who should have been dead._**

**_TBC..._**


	8. Act 8: Wiegenlied

_**A/N: I'm...getting stuck in the plot. It's kinda like pancake syrup-kinda sweet but really hard to get out of your shoes.**_

_When I was but a wee youngling _  
_(I pray those days always last)_  
_Love's voice sung lullabies for me _  
_While my mother held me fast_

_Heaven's stars keep watchful eyes _  
_In my deepest sweetest slumber _  
_My heart aches for my cradle for _  
_Heaven it was with mother_

**_Act 8: Wiegenlied_**

"And you're sure that was him?"  
"W-Well, he seemed much younger...but I swear that was him. He called out my name."

Fakir curled his fingers tightly around the body of his pen. He had grabbed it when the girl came in with such breathlessness that he feared something terrible had happened. And something had, unfortunately.

_This was totally uncalled for, Universe, _Fakir bitterly thought. _Very much so._

* * *

"So...there was a ghost?"

"Don't you argue with me!" Ahiru grumbled, feeling the now skeptical tone in his voice. The two of them were now weaving through the busy streets, now full of shoppers going to and from the market and street sellers. It was particularly bustling...the air was spiced with baked bread and fried sausages, and staccatoed with the sound of peddlers and the jingle of coins.

Ahiru was dragging Fakir now, her tiny hand (in comparison to his) gripping on his dark blue sleeve with a strength he did not think was possible. The young man had not felt her hand, or her warmth in any humanly way, for so long that he did not even think of pulling away from her insistent yank. It was so unreal, that the normally to the point Fakir was actually speechless out of shock.

Both ran (or rather, one ran while the other stumbled) across the cobblestone pathways, their heels clicking on the ground. The young woman went on with the story, talking about the mysterious spirit in the doorway, and the gears that seized to turn, and that specter of a man made young again.

Then Fakir opened his mouth.

"There is no door."

Ahiru gasped, whirling to find the doll peddler's stand at the end of the alley. And no door.

"B-But, I swear there was a door here!" She looked around the sides of the doll peddler's stand from a distance, squinting for any ghostly handle or hinges. The stale red bricks were mocking her with their blankness. "I...I'm not making this up!"

"Looking for something, dearies?"

The wispy doll-peddler smiled her crinkly smile. She was thin and wavy as a reed. "Care to look at these dolls? They all have special stories, you know." And she waved her hand towards her collection of little people.

There was a doll with cornstraw hair as long as its body, braided with loops of purple. Another doll was dressed in a dark blue gown encrusted with lacy bats. Yet another doll was dressed in flannel huntsman's attire, a tiny velvet rose stitched to its hand. There were dolls of fairies with taffeta tutus and dolls of mermaids with shining silken tails. There was even an elfin doll no bigger than Ahiru's hand, wrapped in the pink felt petals of a peony.

On the topmost tier of the display was a doll couple, prettily posed. The prince and princess dolls were hand in hand, the prince's snow-white wool hair contrasting with the princess' lovely plum locks. They had tiny golden crowns on their heads and tiny silver slippers on their feet. The prince's eyes were made of bits of yellow-amber buttons, the princess' of sparkling onyx buttons. They were clothed in handsome robes of ermine and velvet.

When the doll peddler saw the lingering eyes of the young people she smiled with her lemon-wrinkled mouth. "Yes, they are pretty little things. The figureheads of wonderful stories, princes and princesses are. But there are many more interesting dolls here."

The spindly old woman gestured at another doll, radically different from the princess doll. It had shining dark hair and orange-brown button eyes. Its most striking feature was its dress of flaming feathers criss-crossing her golden cotton figure. It had long sleeves and tiny chains of gold, and tiny golden slippers wrapped around its feet. Ahiru's blue eyes widened and her hands found its way to the doll, cradling it in her arms. "She's so beautiful! What is her name?"

"The Firebird? It's a very beautiful doll. They hero may be a prince, and his lady a princess, but I shall never forget that his happiness would never be possible without the wondrous Firebird to light his way." And here Ahiru smiled and nodded, her face licked with warmth.

Fakir sighed and turned to the spindly doll-peddler. "Listen, I'm really sorry if we're disturbing you. We'll just be on our way now." He went and grabbed Ahiru by the hand, preparing to drag her back home.

"But there is no need to worry, dear. This is the way-to the Cradle." And inexplicably, the doll-peddler and her stand began to crumble into powder. Slowly shrinking away into nothingness the woman went, gradually sinking down with her hair growing whiter and her skin growing more like talc. Ahiru screamed and tried to hold fast to the spindly hand mere inches away, but the hand slipped away. Behind the woman there were strips of wood growing from the brick, wrapping around an old brass doorknob.

"This is the Cradle of All Stories," the powdered woman spoke (although her lips were not really lips anymore). "You have touched upon the Oak Tree, the sacred spot of knowledge. From the Cradle is not knowledge, but wilderness of the mind. Freedom taking forms of stories that were made to be."

"The Cradle of All Stories?" Fakir felt the tiniest threads of magic tug at him from the doorway, and his fingertips trembled with...longing? The young woman beside him shifted her weight, apparently preparing herself. "I don't think we should interfere with this place. Something's wrong."

"Of course something's wrong. Someone has already interfered." And the peddler pointed at the Firebird doll Ahiru was holding before completely vanishing into a dusty breeze.

The Firebird doll shook for a while and turned white-feathered, its golden slippers turning salmon and the redness of the ensemble concentrating into a glass bead at its throat. After a few moments Ahiru dropped the doll, unnerved at its appearance.

It was a doll of Princess Tutu.

"Drosselmeyer? Interfered? That must mean...someone else was meant to write our stories...but who, I don't know." Fakir's mind was troubled with the mission put forth to him. "I have to go in there...perhaps I could return the story to the Cradle."

Now a sound of protest made his thoughts leap back into the reality, and he saw Ahiru looking at him with an expression of concern, hurt...perhaps indignation? That seemed to be right, when the young woman stomped her foot on the paving. "What do you mean 'I'? I'm coming with you, Fakir! You can't just go alone!"

"You won't," Fakir said waspishly. "You can't do anything for me there."  
_I don't want to lose you._  
"I have a right to do this," Ahiru cried, and her voice strained. "I'm not useless, you know!"  
_I don't want to leave you._

There was a difficult silence.

At last Ahiru spoke again, gently this time, even a little whispering. "I think I can take undoing Drosselmeyer's work one more time."

And, stepping forward, the redhead let her fingers curl around his. There was a light in her eyes that the writer could always see in her; may it be as a duck, as a princess, and as a simple girl. It was that light of hope that burned ever so steadily.

"...Are you sure?" There was worry in Fakir's dark eyes, though his voice just seemed surprised. "It could be a trick. It could be a way to pull us back inside his games." And he nodded at the patiently waiting door.

"I'm not afraid."

_I'm with you._

And with that they hurtled into the darkened world of dreams.

* * *

It was the last night of the year, New Year's Eve. And it was so terribly cold! It was snowing, and soon it will be dark.

Through the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl wandered in the street, with bare feet and no scarf for her fead. She wandered along with her bare feet which were blue with cold. She was carrying several matches in her old apron and was holding one bundle in her hand.

Unbeknownst to her, a stranger in a flamboyant hat was following her, quiet as a shadow.

_**TBC**_


	9. Act 9: Filibustering

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A/N: :P Sorry for the weird vagueness! And lateness! This was difficult to articulate for me.

I own nothing but the plot?

_

* * *

_

_Match girl, match girl, have you any goods?_  
_Yes sir, yes sir, three handfuls!_  
_One for my frozen fingers,_  
_One for my feet,_  
_One for my fun'ral pyre held by the street._

* * *

_**Act 9: Filibustering**_

It was the last night of the year, New Year's Eve. And it was so terribly cold! It was snowing, and soon it will be dark.

Through the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl wandered in the street, with bare feet and no scarf for her fead. She wandered along with her bare feet which were blue with cold. She was carrying several matches in her old apron and was holding one bundle in her hand.

Unbeknowst to her, a stranger in a flamboyant hat was following her, quiet as a shadow.

It was bitterly white and windy outside, and the little match girl huddled close to the walls of the buildings. Finally situating herself in an alley, she found a wooden crate to sit on and curled up there all by her lonesome. How she wished to be warm! She looked at her graying hands and was tempted by the little matches in her apron.

It wouldn't hurt, surely, to light one!

* * *

Fakir felt a sudden stab of cold air go through him, and he shivered as his surroundings swam around him. It was a whirl of gray and white and blue, and he distinctly heard the sounds of crunching snow. His feet found solidity, and his lungs were scaled by the sharp wind. Hard.

To his left he heard Ahiru coughing violently, and the tremor under his palms told him that she, too, had fallen to the ground. He squinted at the figure and saw her tan hands so different from the cobblestoned earth. There was frost chilling his palms, and blowing his skin bluer. He stood up slowly, his back hunched against the wind.

The writer's eye caught another shivering being, squatting on a crate. He looked around and saw signs that were not there before, streets that lay unfamiliar. There were people in the streets with long cloaks and strange animal-head-topped canes, and shoulders that were just as chilly as the hanging wisps of ice.

"W-where are" _...we?_

Transparence. A sudden pinch of transparence hit his skin, and just like that they were phantoms. Phantoms that heard thoughts seeping poison into the diluting air. Thoughts that escaped from the crate in the alley.

_I-I'm so l-lonely...s-so...cold...I want t-to...go h-home..._

These trail of thoughts took the form of a girl, barely ten years old. She was dressed in rags and seemed to be carved out of blue-tinged chalk, so frail she was. In her lap was a bundle of matches, and burned out matchsticks dusted the snow at her feet.

Ahiru cried out for the poor child, and her arm was held fast. _Oh, Fakir! I can't bear to see her die here. Can't we do something?_

A sharp lurch in his chest told Fakir not to do anything about the poor creature, dying as she was. In the past few years he had become quite sensitive to the tiny pull of the magic that writers often made, and this one tried to rip something out of his middle. The intent was clear though: do not interfere.

_...I don't think we should. She's...she's destined to die right here._

The girl trembled, indignant and scared and worried. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but her heart was dripping in every syllable.

_H-how do you know this? How do you know her fate?_

And for once, he gave her an unsatisfactory answer.

_...I don't know._

* * *

The quite, sad thoughts were streaming again, along with wishes of being warm again, with the two travelers of times not being able to comfort her. This went on for some time, and it seemed as if she would light one last match to keep herself warm.

Suddenly an agonizing grind jolted these thoughts and polluted the air. Fakir actually felt himself clap his hands over his ears: the screech was audible to them, and it was ghastly. They were words of guilt, guilt and sorrow:

_Your father would surely beat you if you waste any of those precious matches!_  
The girl's pale lips trembled.  
_Your mother would cry if she saw you hadn't sold a single one!_  
She clutched the match tighter.  
_And the house would be just as cold, and you'd go to bed hungry again!_  
Her hand fell slowly to the side, devoid of hope.

Fakir was still trying to stem out the noise when his companion flew forward. Ahiru heard the familiar, horrifying grinding of cogs and knew that these thoughts of death were inserted by evil hands.

She had to do something to-at least-keep him from interfering!

She embrace the little child with her ghosty arms and whispered tenderly in her ear:

_Light a match, little one! Light a match!_  
The hand holding the match scratched feebly against the stones.  
_Go on! Be warm and happy!_  
Trembling, the girl kept the flame close to the bundle of sticks.  
_Feel the light!_

As if hearing her voice, the little girl desperately set all the matches aflame. The bundle in her hand glowed like a bouquet of heavenly flowers, and her pallor was lessened by the glorious golden glow. Fakir was shocked to see the blazing aura that surrounded them, all through that tiny bundle of matches.

Then the golden aura visibly warped, and he knew then that he and Ahiru were seeing what the little match girl was seeing: an overwhelming glow, and a figure shrouded in inexplicable beauty; the figure was wrinkled and had white hair, but her dress was clean and pretty and her face was serene and fine. The woman, standing beautiful and tall, with the faded kerchief on her head and the smile on her face, lifted her hand towards her dear grandchild, with a beckoning hand.

Immediately a whoosh! seemed to enveloped the alley, and the huge clock tower struck twelve. She bathed the pale body in light until the warmth drew her wraith out of the fleshy prison. With each ring of the great silver bells the little girl-spirit became brighter and warmer and happier.

And at the last ring, a powerful wind blew the gold away; the vision was gone, girl-spirit and all. The little match girl's eyes remained open, glassy, for an obscene amount of time. The two phantoms took a moment to realize what had happened.

The girl was dead.

Ahiru shuddered as she looked at the corpse, and a little rattling gasp shook her chest. Amazingly, she did not cry, only shiver in the wind she no longer felt. Fakir stood there, feeling the lining of his throat tighten and turning away from another tragedy.

* * *

"Now that isn't fair!"

The gangly tragedist rounded against the creature that once again was very hazy to him, and hence should be even more difficult for us actual people to pronounce in the living realm. "I thought I was free from this infernal prison. Free to wreak havoc on all those whom I please!"

He tried to poke the insubstantial bard that presided the tale with his finger, and failed. The curly-haired man huffed angrily, allowing parts of the smoky poet to spread in the blackness. "Turns out I'm restricted to only meddling with their minds again? I wish to feel matter, to wreak physical destruction myself!"

Drosselmeyer was met with nothing but the odd humming that occurred when the bard was at work.

There is fate worse than death, you know, it quoted from the wise man at the train station.

"But it's terrible all by itself," He snapped, preparing his entry through another ominous gear.

* * *

Fakir sucked in a breath as they walked.

"I felt so damn helpless, Ahiru." The nail marks in his faint palms became more opaque.  
"As did I. But you said it yourself. There was nothing we could have done."  
But the redhead felt that she herself lacked conviction.

"..."

As the two phantomish heroes looked for a way out they spotted a curious bundle of dusty bandages. How strange. It didn't seem to faze Fakir very much (who was still figuring out how to get back to their world), but Ahiru did notice it being blown by the wind.

**Hello.**

The young woman jumped back and squeaked in fright! The bandages were moving, and from its dusty gaps and empty spaces there seemed to be a head, a head of nothingness. "F-Fakir, look!"

The writer was already there, and he scrutinized the head with his olive eyes. He carefully picked up the object, keeping it at arm's length, and casting his wary gaze. The odd headdress shape under the cloth made him guess it was the head of an official, one time.

**Hey, don't do that young man**, the thing protested. **It feels like you'll burn my bandages off with all that staring.**

"...Are you the Truth?"

**I am not the Truth.** The head spoke (although it may have been just a pair of eyes) with an eerie manner, and sometimes it coughed what appeared to be dust. **I was misplaced here by a youth, who came looking for a seer. He took me, believing me to be a seer, and left me here after learning otherwise.**

"What did he ask of you?"

**He asked me where the great source of all Truth is, that he may make it his own.**

Fakir's brows creased sharply, knowing that this prideful complex was typical of Drosselmeyer. "And did you answer him? And what do you know of the Truth?"

**I tried, and my answer failed to please him. He took me from my own plane of existence, you know, because the Truth was very wise indeed there. And he tossed me aside when my answer was less than expected. Truth...is a difficult thing to grasp. Even I am not completely sure, although everything is a container of some Truth. It's a matter of...how one grasps things himself.**

"You mean...like interpretation?"

**Why, that's the word**, it shivered. **Interpretation. Different versions of the same essence. Now that essence, I should say, is the Truth. That is what is truly important, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure.**

"My head hurts," Ahiru croaked, who had been listening quietly.

**As does mine. But the Truth, if I remember correctly, controls the past, present, and future. It defines identities and so on. And that's what we all try to find, really. But since Truth is also present in all of us, we all have a sense of what it is.**

The pair of eyes rolled about in phantomy space again, and sighed (perhaps in thought): **I remember not so long ago when I was back in my own time. I was quickly discarded there, too; however not ungratefully. My performance actually stunned the church officials of the time-I believe one of them fainted, can you believe? And the head seemed cheered up.**

Fakir looked at his companion, who only looked at his face with that quiet burning that meant questions and expectations. He nodded curtly before turning back to the head. Before he could inquire more, however, the head whistled low and flapped its bindings.

**My existence here is up, I think. If you would be kind and toss me in there...**

And Ahiru's eyes were drawn to a bin that was unexplainably full of freezing brine. As if it was prepared knowing that he would arrive. She would have to get used to these things, seeing as Fakir seemed the more well-adjusted to such events.

"...Thank you."

**Goodbye and good luck.**

And Fakir set the head (or was it a head?) afloat on the salty water, and the two watched the swirling dust drown away, and the water mysteriously drain into nothingness. They looked at each other now, and blue danced with green.

**What was the Truth, then?**

**

* * *

**

**_TBC_**


	10. Act 10: Dimensions

**_A/N:_**

Yes, more gratuitous German. : |

Can I ask help from you, dear readers, what to do with our little people?

I'd be very grateful to all of you. Put anything that might happen, in your opinions.

And it probably will.

**DISCLAIMER:** _I own nothing but the plot and the crappy pre-story poetry. But even that is contentious. You might own it too._

* * *

_Perhaps, in times of quiet noise _

_Or days of cloudy cold,_

_I'd find a chest of treasures rich _

_Inlaid with ash and gold._

_Inside there'd be the little things _

_that crept in people's dreams,_

_The fantasies that manifest _

_From all hearts, at their seams._

.

**_Act 10: Dimensions_**

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.

.

Ahiru found herself treading the hallways long after the midnight oil had been burned.

"Come, Fakir," she would say, holding the plate and mug he used in her hand. "Authors greater than you needed to eat too. I have your dinner with me."

And a grunt would sound off behind the door, and she would step inside in her nightgown. She suspected that there would be unspoken words again, written and rewritten and drafted and revised and scratched out,

_Einmal gab es ein Mädchen...Der Ritter kämpfte mit seinem sterblichen Feind...Sie alle lebten glücklich seit dieser Zeit..._

again and again until fingers and throats go numb.

There she would see that the author's eye bags did not do justice to the peculiarly beautiful green of his irises.

Like the past few nights, she would pull him by the arms into his bed, and he did not resist (for he was so out of his waking mind that nothing else would spur him like this other than pain of death). The once-duck-girl would tuck him in, amidst slurred protests, and shut off his oil lamp in hopes that the darkness would seal his troubles into slumber.

It was the morning after, when Fakir came to breakfast a few hours late and still groggy, when Ahiru mentions something sitting at the dining table.

"You've been writing alot recently, haven't you? I always find you half-dead every evening."

And Fakir would go on as if he had not heard her, although this was more from sleep-deprivation than anything.

He knew, he was indeed quite aware that Ahiru was becoming suspicious of what he was writing - although he was sure that the contents of his papers were never divulged.

To be truthful he was afraid. Of actions and consequences. And he was working hard to make sure those consequences were taken care of. He only managed an irritable growl that day, which grated on Ahiru's nerves.

"...Well, talk to me when you feel better, you grouch," And the redhead snorted in a huffy, worried kind of way. "See you later then."

And she went out the door into the streets outside. The writer couldn't help but shrug, knowing full well that Ahiru's emotions would turn back and cool down later on. Unperturbed, he continued to eat.

The moment the door swung shut, a lively trilling promptly made Fakir's food intake do a U-turn.

It was Uzura again, and Fakir thought that the universe did not wish him to rest. He grunted and drank more water, forcing nutrition into him before whatever task needs to be done. "Alright, I think I'm really for whatever hell is next."

He leaned back on his chair and looked expectantly at the puppet, who trilled with her bright drum and said:

"What's next-zura? I don't know."

* * *

Ahiru was sitting at the Kinkan Town square's prominent fountain, visibly miffed at Fakir's morning grouchiness. Her simple pale-yellow dress was in danger of being soaked through - it was something Charon dug up at a thrift shop for her - but she didn't really care.

She was absorbed in thought, something that made her very pensive. Dwelling on things did not suit the girl's sunny disposition, and it showed.

She thought that she would get used to it, by now, but it was a different story living together. Her fingers crept into a pocket of the dress, touching the steadily deteriorating scrap of painting.

It seemed almost insignificant now, but a part of her wanted to believe that perhaps that painting was connected to her past. The tatters felt soft and weak against her fingertips.

"Hey, miss!"

A little boy of about six called to her, gesturing to the ball that had rolled towards her feet. Smiling faintly, Ahiru kicked the ball back and watched it bounce back to its owner.

The boy smiled and ran towards her, bright gold curls bobbing in the morning sun. He greeted her and clambered to sit on the fountain next to his newfound friend. "I've been playing all morning, and I'm quite tired." He turned to Ahiru to continue the banter, which she did gamely:

"Just poking around the house and taking care of those inside. I need fresh air in case I get all crusty."

"Don't you have things to do of your own? Something for yourself?"

"I d-do!"

In truth she neither dreamed dreams nor aspired to be anything. She once did, she could vaguely feel. But not anymore, really.

"And you, little man? What dreams fill up your head?" She was treated to fantasies of sweets and worlds, as well as wishes to become good and famous and strong. It sounded nice, having a little ambition. "Sounds like quite a story to put to paper, your life."

"But I don't want to put my life on a paper!" And the small boy frowned at this. "It wouldn't fit!"

He waved his feathers and stared at his listener with bright beady eyes, warbling incessantly. "I mean, what would I do with my life on a paper?" He fluttered off, singing to himself aimlessly into the streets.

_We don't know_, Ahiru nodded. Her dress began to gray. _And yet. And still._

* * *

"You don't know?"

Uzura remained quietly tapping, as innocent to the eyes as ever. She seemed normal in her poofy harlequin costume, frills and stripes. She seemed grayer than usual, frozen even. Her music mechanism must have bogged down, for no more sound came from the little doll.

"Well, look who it is."

A mass of clouded wash bleached the atmosphere of the world, and all the gaudy colors percolated into a figure of a man in a plum cape, with bright pomegranate eyes and an uncanny smile. Fakir moved to find a weapon - any weapon - for what other reaction would one use when the hellish creator came into your home?

"Drosselmeyer!"

"As sharp as always, dear boy."

"Why are you even here?"

"Tut-tut-tut, this is always a matter of consequences. Every story has consequences, and I happen to veer them into things I like best."

And Drosselmeyer chuckled, patting Uzura's immobile head. "However, it seems that more powerful magic is at work now. Men with powers like ours are helpless against this type of art."

"Art?"

"The art that had permeated existence for eons, Fakir! Creating universes that are three sides of one coin. You turn one way, another set of sides opens up until everything has and will occur."

He tapped his chin with a gloved finger, contemplating in an almost thoughtful manner.

"Quite chaotic - I quite like the idea."

Fakir blanched. "So this isn't your doing?"

"Yes and no. It's all our doing. Playing by rules we only feel."

"And these rules let you pull people back into your games? Forced into what you want them to be!"

"I gave them the option of 'purpose', you see. They will rejoin one of my darkest fairy tales yet, and I only have a few more people until my powers take full control of Kinkan and its world."

He flashed an even wider grin, wider than a clown could ever aspire to reach.

"And besides, I'm hardly the only one at fault. Look at you."

The young man froze, and he felt an inkling of doubt suddenly strangle his throat.

Drosselmeyer swept closer, sliding in circles around the movements reminded Fakir of a predator, waiting to devour when the prey was at its weakest.

"Why, yes! You were the one who decided to rewrite the history of this place! You've fabricated that duck's humanity and history, you've fabricated the circumstances of my death, why, you've gone above and beyond by trying to finish every 'opening' and 'flaw'! The clues, the tricklings and trickings-all attempts of your feeble mind to make sense of the world!"

"I have done no such thing!" The former knight roared, fists clenched.

"Oh yes you have!" And here the smoggy clouds flooded the plane they were in. Drosselmeyer swept his cape over his shoulder, imperious in tone. "Your inner self - your real self - wanted to 'resolve' anything and everything, and did so in the manner it saw fit. You have manipulated the world just as much as I!"

A stony choking sound came out of Fakir's lips as the realization gripped him.

_It was true._

He looked up from his shocked, tearing gaze at the figure, who was surprisingly silent. Pleading green eyes looked at the countenance, begging, pleading...

"...How do I stop this? How should the story reach the truth?"

"Certainly I don't know," Drosselmeyer sniffed.

He seemed nonplussed about the whole affair, and dusted his hands. "Never tried to turn it back. Why should I, when all my plans are so much more fantastic than reality? It seems to be the same for you, really-see here!" He drew from his cape a long silver sword, with a strange purple feather on its hilt.

The metal tip moved to graze at Fakir's throat, who barely reacted to death aimed straight at him.

"You meant for this to happen - the chance to kill me. Or,"

and here the spectre jutted his wrist and flipped the sword, catching its tip with his hand.

"To kill yourself. Your move, Fakir!"

**_._**

**_._**

**_._**

**_TBC_**


End file.
